


Out of Darkness, A New Star

by sweetNsimple



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Barry Whump, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-01
Updated: 2016-08-01
Packaged: 2018-07-28 17:42:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7650400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetNsimple/pseuds/sweetNsimple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Come on, kid,” Len said.  His hand squeezed Barry’s and a supernova imploded across Barry’s knuckles and enveloped the Milky Way forming across Leonard’s fingers.  “You can get me some hot cocoa from Jitters.  With marshmallows.”</p>
<p>"We really didn't realize how impermanent we are, and that our bodies are made of remnants of stars and massive explosions in the galaxies.” ~ Iris Schrijver, professor of pathology at Stanford University (2015)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of Darkness, A New Star

The black and blue of bruises was hard to discern from the galaxy that swirled indolently right beneath his epidermis.  It was an evolutionary setback, a gene of a more primitive ancestor that had yet to become obsolete.  And it _was_ obsolete.  As a child, he had thought the glow and idle cycles of stars across Iris’s face had been the most beautiful sight to behold.  Now he was older, tired, and Iris’s face was turned toward Eddie Thawne and Barry had his eyes set on different features.  He and his galaxies did not dance alone, but the dance was not of childish innocence anymore either.

He stopped looking at his wrists and turned his hands to gaze at his palms instead.  They mimicked the Antennae Galaxies back at him. 

Even as he stared, a hand slipped into his, stars glaring and red glowing beneath the thinnest, most vulnerable layer of skin. 

“Come on, kid,” Len said.  His hand squeezed Barry’s and a supernova imploded across Barry’s knuckles and enveloped the Milky Way forming across Leonard’s fingers.  “You can get me some hot cocoa from Jitters.  _With_ marshmallows.”

If Barry had had the strength to ask, his first question would have been why Len cared; A part of him already knew, but the larger part of himself consumed by overwhelming grief and guilt and uselessness demanded an answer like his lungs demanded air.  _Why_?, he wanted to demand, and angrily rip himself free of Len, of the house, of Central City.  He wanted to run until he disappeared.  He wanted to run until he did not exist, until he had never existed.  Maybe everyone would be better off that way.  A world where Barry Allen had never ruined the lives of everyone who dared to care for him and support him. 

His second question, ringing with a dull thud, was when had Len even arrived.  His third would have been what Len thought he was doing, coming into Joe’s home when the cop could conceivably return at any moment.  Joe was still angry, still silent toward Barry, for being in a relationship with the criminal.  His silence and the dull red of the universe across his clenched jaw hurt Barry like a bullet to his heart. 

But Barry was tired and so he said nothing for a long time.  Len’s touch burned with the cosmic heat of his asterdermis, pleasant and soothing to how Barry had cooled in his depression. 

Len had always run cooler than Barry.  Barry knew from their many near encounters that Len radiated at room temperature, if not even noticeably cooler. 

“Do you think,” he croaked, then tried again.  “Do you think it would be easier if humans cried?”

“What, like an elephant?  A dog?”  Len pulled him to his feet.  Now they stood close together, sharing oxygen, and Len’s free hand settled easily on his waist, a tether to hold Barry together with.  Len was unbearably comfortable with him and Barry felt as if he was tearing apart at the seams.  As if his asterdermis had finally become too hot and he was about to break inward and become a blackhole. 

“Yeah,” Barry said.  “Instead of this freezing to sadness thing we do.”  He was weak and tired and he put his head to Len’s shoulder.  “You’re always so cold,” he told Len.  “Captain Cold.  Right now, though, you’re warmer than me.  I must be pretty pitiful.”

“Are you trying to say that _I’m_ usually the pitiful one?”

“I would never call you pitiful.”  Chasing a tiny thread of humor, he smiled and added, “Kind of lame sometimes, yeah, but never pitiful.”

Len tugged on his hair.  “You need to buy us both a hot chocolate.  Preferably before you obliterate all of Central City with your sad eyes.”

“I think I’m too tired to go out right now.”

“Then we’ll order in.  You still pay.”

“I’m not really hungry.”

“I’ll force feed you.” 

“That’s not a nice thing to do.”

“I’m shocked.  I always strive to do the nice thing.” 

“I bet you do,” Barry bantered back.  He watched a shooting star of gold sluggishly follow the ridge of Len’s jugular.  It soon disappeared under Len’s grey tee.  “Can we just – can we just lay down for a little while?  Please?”

Len was silent for a long moment, contemplating.  Considering if Barry’s plea was worth giving up Plan A-Z that he most likely had to keep Barry up and movign. 

He finally sighed through his nostrils and turned them so that Len’s back was to the bed.  He wrapped his other arm around Barry’s waist and tipped them over. 

Time slowed, an adrenalized reaction to surprises.  In the two seconds it took for them to fall into bed, Len beneath him, Barry could have escaped, could have righted them, could have turned them, could have left and gotten a drink of water.  He stayed and closed his eyes and the two seconds that felt like a small century finally ended.  Len huffed and pushed them further up the bed, casually holding Barry to his chest with one arm.   Barry put one hand to his chest and felt the rhythmic, strong thump of his heart against the spray of nebulae shining through his dermis. 

“For a little while,” Len allowed.  There were constellations across his cheeks and foreheads.  There were stars in his eyes that dazzled Barry, but these had nothing to do with the human asterdermis and everything to do with the ever-changing color of Len’s gaze.  Perhaps there were no stars in his eyes at all, but Barry stared as if he could name each and every one of them given enough time. 

“Thank you,” he whispered back.  He rearranged himself so that his knees weren’t digging into his bed, pulling his feet onto the mattress, and got his elbow out of Len’s ribs.  Situated and at peace, if not still haunted by formless demons, by whispers of doubt and hatred, if not belittled by _himself_ , he subjected himself to Len’s distracted petting.  Len softly traced where the bruises had been on his wrists with a thumb, fingers interweaving with his.

Already, they were gone. 

The black and blue of new bruises, the green and yellow of old bruises – neither showed well next to the swell and expansion of the nebulae that existed in the asterdermis of the human skin.  A new bruise became an old bruise and quickly was gone on Barry anyway.

“You’re stronger now than ever,” Len told him.  Len was confident and certain.  This was not praise, but an observation and Len made this observation based off of facts and what he himself had witnessed. 

“Then why do I feel so weak?”  
“No one can be strong forever.”

Barry almost childishly replied, _You can_ , but knew it wasn’t true.  Len’s weak points were very much like Barry’s and very different at the same time.  Their weak points had names – family, friends.  It was only the names that were different and the quantity of them.  Barry had many and Len had few. 

“I need to be strong,” Barry told Len.

“You need to take a break,” Len told him.  “Rest for a while,” he ordered.  He pressed his lips between Barry’s eyes.  “Then you owe me a hot chocolate.”

A gas cloud of deep red and blotches of gold seeped up Len’s inner arm.  Barry’s fingers twitched to trace it, but inevitably went still.  He had no energy, no drive, to be in awe and worship. 

“What if I need a long break?” Barry asked. 

“Then you need a long break,” Len answered, as if it really was that simple.

“I can’t take long breaks.  I’m The Flash.  People need me.”

“People can fuck off.”

Barry wanted to defend those hypothetical people; ultimately, he failed to gather his fighting spirit and have a go at a confrontation. 

“What about your hot chocolate?” He tried.

“Raincheck,” was the easy reply.  “Go to sleep, Barry.  I’ll be here when you wake up.”

He curled himself up on top of Len and closed his eyes.  He didn’t want to be subservient; even more than that, however, he did not want to be in charge.

Len was easy to give control to.  Barry already knew that, if he broke into a million pieces, Len would have a plan to put him back together again.  That was the kind of person he was.  He always had a contingency plan.

A galaxy of blinding blue and dusty yellow bloomed on his chest, which he did not see.  In the center of Len’s chest grew the same galaxy, swirling and growing into an accretion disk that surrounded one speck of searing hot white, a new star that resonated and pulsed like the new star just under Barry’s dermis.  If not for their shirts, the newly formed worlds would have touched and coveted, much like the men they had formed on. 

They pulsed in time with the beat of hearts, the rhythm of blood flow, the gush and flow of liquid and heat in the asterdermis.

Barry, for the first time that night, felt warm.

~::~

The End...

**Author's Note:**

> “Everything we are and everything in the universe and on Earth originated from stardust, and it continually floats through us even today. It directly connects us to the universe, rebuilding our bodies over and again over our lifetimes... We really didn't realize how impermanent we are, and that our bodies are made of remnants of stars and massive explosions in the galaxies.” ~ Iris Schrijver, professor of pathology at Stanford University (2015) 
> 
> READ HERE AT: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/01/150128-big-bang-universe-supernova-astrophysics-health-space-ngbooktalk/


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